After signing Mike Wallace, Dannell Ellerbe, Philip Wheeler, resigning Chris Clemons and releasing Karlos Dansby and Kevin Burnett, the Dolphins are still roughly about $20 million under the cap. Figure about $5-6 million will go to rookies and only the top 51 contracts count against the cap.

So the Dolphins are still in good shape to spend more.

But the even better news is there are still plenty of moves the Dolphins could make to create more room under the cap.

Let's look at the 20 largest cap numbers on the roster right now and their potential cap savings if they were to be released or restructured (keep in mind restructuring lowers their cap number so the cap savings would only be a portion of what is listed).

The Dolphins could release Richard Marshall and Dimitri Patterson right now and open up an additional $8 million in cap space. Throw in Incognito, Bess, Carpenter, Jerry and Spitler and you're looking at $19 million for a total cap space of $39 million.

Granted the Dolphins probably prefer keeping Incognito, Bess (watch out for Brandon Gibson in free agency or a faster slot receiver like Tavon Austin in the draft) and Jerry while they don't have anyone better on the roster. But you can certainly make a case for replacing Carpenter, who is earning a lot of money after an uneven season.

Looking a little further down, you have Daniel Thomas with a $455K cap savings, Nolan Carroll with $630K, and several other players at $250K - $500K that could be upgraded or released.

The Dolphins could also explore extending Starks to lower his cap number, which is the largest on the roster right now, or restructuring Soliai, who has the 2nd largest cap number. Or even restructuring Incognito or Carpenter.

Point is, there is a lot of cap flexibility right now. As the details come in for the new contracts, I'll see if I can post something regarding how 2014 is looking.

Another good thing with this flexibility is that the upcoming rookies, for the most part, will not have to be relied upon from Day 1 to either start or be a major contributor. Time for development is needed. Miami can sign stop gaps and draft depth/future starters.

Carp may have had an uneven year, but the truth is that most or all kickers have uneven years. He is young, a proven commodity, and not as easily replaced as some may think. I might look to restructure his deal, but no way would I cut him (not sure if that's what you were saying).

The Post obtained a copy of both contracts, and Jeff Ireland seems to have made a fairly shrewd move: Not only did he get younger and faster with Ellerbe and Wheeler, but he saved $2.3 million in cap space with the move. Karlos Dansby and Kevin Burnett saved the Dolphins $7.1 million against the cap, and Ellerbe and Wheeler both have nearly identical $2.4 million cap numbers in 2013.

Ellerbe got more money on the back end of his contract than Wheeler did, but the two linebackers signed very similar deals. Let’s break it down:

These deals are structured in the same way the Dolphins did Brian Hartline’s deal last week: A nice signing bonus and two years of fully guaranteed salary, with the Dolphins able to get out from the contract or restructure in Year 3 if they need to. The Dolphins should have a tight salary cap in 2014, but they won’t be handcuffed for 2015 and beyond by these deals.

We don’t have the numbers yet on Mike Wallace, but assuming his contract is structured similarly, expect his salary cap number to be around $7 million.

Here is the Dolphins’ full salary cap picture after adding Ellerbe and Wheeler. They’ve spent $96.77 million against the salary cap of $128.3 million, so before adding in Wallace they have about $31.5 million in cap space: